One Last Beach Trip

Emma had a little visitor last night. Brian and Jessica needed someone to watch the kids today, and while I'm not brave enough to take both of them on for a full day, I felt pretty comfortable offering to watch Caelyn. She generally behaves pretty well for me and she's potty trained. Very important.

Emma was super excited. Unfortunately for her, we don't know very many people with kids her age, so she's often stuck hanging out with a bunch of adults - or little kids. But she adores her cousins.

Emma had been asking about going to the beach, and Bobby had said "maybe." This, of course, translated to "yes" in her head, and she convinced herself that since her dad had not said "no" that we would be going. I had to admit, it sounded kind of nice, and though I tried stressing that "maybe" did not mean "yes," I secretly hoped he'd be able to get enough of his homework done so we could go... and made sure we brought beach supplies for Caelyn to come with us.

We didn't leave for home until somewhat late, and I was hoping the girls would be both be crashed out when we arrived. Caelyn did (yes!), but she woke up when I pulled her out of the car. We normally let Emma stay up late on weekends, but I was exhausted, and had them off to bed right away. Emma was pretty insistent that Caelyn could sleep next to her. After hearing a few "Shh Caelyn, we're supposed to go to sleep now" I peaked in to find them fast asleep. I'm quite sure it's not supposed to be this easy.

I woke up on the early side for me. I think I was anticipating that Caelyn would be waking early and wandering the house unchaperoned. That girl is capable of getting into way too much trouble, so I couldn't let that happen. But she wasn't up yet when I woke up (this is still going much too well), so I started making some tasty buttermilk pancakes. At around 7:30 I heard her stirring. So I came in and scooped her up so Emma could sleep in.

Caelyn apparently loves pancakes. She asked me what I was doing. "Making pancakes." Her eyes lit up, "yeah, pancakes!" She wolfed down the first two as soon as they were ready, along with a few peices of cantelope.

When Emma woke up she looked outside and her face fell. There was a considerable marine layer, and it couldn't have been warmer than 60 degrees outside. Not your ideal beach day, right? "We're probably not going to the beach, are we?"
"Well babe, we are maybe going to the beach. Maybe it will warm up in a few hours."

She was not convinced. But I was right, in a few hours we were looking outside and you could see the sun suddenly come out. Emma went running into the back room to tell her dad it had warmed up enough to go to the beach.

She won. I made lunches and packed up some beach stuff and headed to Newport. Caelyn was asleep shortly after we left the house. Perfect, I thought, she'll take a nap on the way there, we'll wear her out at the beach, and she'll fall asleep on the way back out to Norco. She is notoriously difficult to put down for a nap, so this was just making everything easier for me.

At first, Caelyn didn't want her toes to even touch the water. When it approached she went running away from it, so I scooped her up and held her so the water couldn't get her. For awhile she was scooping up freshly rinsed sand, throwing it into the water, and then turning and running back to where Bobby was camped out. Eventually we got her to touch the water, and it didn't take long before she wanted to be out there in it with Emma. Bobby normally goes out into the water with Emma while I lie around reading, but he was camped out doing homework, so I went in the water with the girls.

Caelyn had this kid's life vest thing on, and I was bent over with my arms around her chest. Each time a wave would come I would say, "Ready.... jump!" and she would jump into the wave screaming and giggling. The girl must have been up to her armpits in water, and I had to hold her back from rushing out further.

Every time we go to the beach (or any other public place), I'm surprised by how much more adventurous Emma has become over the last year or so. It wasn't long ago that she would panic if she thought her dad or I were too far away. Even going into bathrooms alone was scary. Now we have to remind her that we need her to be within sight when she's in the water like that.

Both the girls had a really good time. The 2 1/2 hours we spent seemed like a perfect amount of time, and I was shocked they didn't both pass out on the way to Norco. Caelyn wasn't too excited about dropping Emma off, and wanted us to turn around and pick her up again (me too). When we did get to her Nana's house, the normally rambuctious Caelyn was content to sit on the couch quietly with her aunt Katie watchng Finding Nemo.